six { text } ego

[theminotaur]

So on a scale of one to awesome, one being useless as a slicker in the Sahara and awesome being ten: how useful is/are your power(s)?

Idle curiosity. Must be Tuesday.

Checked the newspaper, it is actually Tuesday.

[ that was handy and this, as she's walking to the bus stop from the porter, again, seems more expedient than texting everyone she knows. it only seems to be a day or so, so maybe they won't have even noticed.

ha!

anyway abigail is back from her power update! ]

Comments

[superposition]

Did I just hear you imply there are situations where infinite coffee isn't useful?

[puppydoctor]

If someone was about to get hit by a bus or something, yeah. There would be way more useful powers.

[superposition]

[.... ouch. wow, did that joke run headfirst into a brick wall or what.]

Ah. Well. Yes, point taken.

The invulnerability might come in handy there, though.

[puppydoctor]

Yeah. It would.

[He's not trying to be morbid, but a sudden thought - ]

Maybe that's why I got it. True irony.

private; encrypted

[superposition]

[Irony? Why is th- wait a second. George did show up covered in blood and thinking he was dead, after all... He switches to private just in case.]

Is that what happened? Before you were ported in?

ditto

[puppydoctor]

[Ah..ha.... That whole first day is a blur, and he knew that Qubit and that old guy put two and two together. But as for the actual details.....]

My boss gave me the day off to be with my family, since I'd just joined the army. And on the way home there was this girl, and I stopped to talk to her but this bus came out of nowhere and I just


[b r e a t h e]

She was fine. She stayed with me the whole time. And I thought for awhile maybe I'd make it, because I've seen what my friends can do. They tried their best.

private; encrypted

[superposition]

Oh, George, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

[That means it wasn't even a quick death. It was one of those messy, lingering, suffering deaths. No wonder George had been so messed up when he first arrived... but even then, all he'd been able to talk about at first was his friend. Izzie.]

The girl you saved - she wasn't someone you knew?

[puppydoctor]

No. She wasn't. And I wasn't thinking about being a hero or something like that. It was just instinct.

[He'd at least had the chance to make peace with what was happening, during all of those hours. But he's certainly glad that they're having this talk via text, rather than video, or else he's not sure he could get the words out.]

I'd like to say I'd do it again, but I don't know. Maybe if I could say goodbye first.

[superposition]

[There's so much Qubit could say here. So much he wants to say. Before this he just felt sort of bad for George - a hardworking civilian who got caught up in a mess beyond his realm of experience - but now there's a profound admiration for him there, too. It's people like him, the ones willing to give their lives for the sake of strangers, who give him hope for humanity. Even with as much as he does to help, Qubit's not that kind of person himself. He calculates, he assesses, he measures. That self-sacrificing instinct, if he ever had it to begin with, is something that years of harsh experience have tempered out of him. But George...]

You're a hero to her, George.

[It made a difference to that one.]

That kind of instinct can't be overthought. It dissolves when exposed to reason. But what matters is that, in that split second, you were willing to do whatever it took to save her. That's a rarer quality than you'd think. Not everyone's capable of it.

[puppydoctor]

Thank you, Qubit. That means a lot.

[The answer only comes after several minutes of radio silence. The words hit George hard in the gut, and he has to take a deep breath to keep his eyes from watering up on him. He never wanted to be a hero. He never wanted to matter that way, he just wanted to help people. And he wonders for a moment if giving his life for this one girl is worth the lives he won't be able to save overseas. But he has to believe that that's not true, that his death wasn't a mistake.]

I hope I can do the same here. I've never been brave, really.

[superposition]

[By "do the same" he assumes you mean "only without the whole dying horribly part"...]

I think you're braver than you realize. Bravery's not the absence of fear, it's the ability to keep going in spite of it.

ahhh i never got this notif wtf

[puppydoctor]

I'll keep that in mind, sir.

[Apologies for the formality, Qubit. But you're reminding George a bit of his old Chief.]

how dare you dw

[superposition]

[That "sir" gets a bit of a chuckle out of him. People treating him with more respect than he deserves........]

Chin up, all right?

<3

[puppydoctor]

Yeah. I'll try my best, Qubit.